Can join but not play any games?

[gencm]

Hi,

Had standard MOW and looged onto gamespy to try MP. Was told I needed 1.17.5 to join any games as this option was greyed out. Installed 1.17.5.1 and Join became active. However, now ready remains greyed out and I seem unable to actually choose a side (am I missing something here?) and even if I create my own game I cannot actually choose a side or ready myself to join it? The only time I actually managed to get the ready to come up was in a coop game (didn't have to choose a side) but I got kick out with an out of synch error!

What am I doing wrong?